<p>Excellent point, Mini. I think Jamimom, valuing tact highly, got a bit carried away with her own rhetoric. (sort of like Churchill did, I would argue.) I don't believe that she really means: " Those well intentioned often cause the most damage to their own causes. It is not the intent that counts in a public speech, but the delivery. "</p>
<p>In light of this controversy, I wonder if anyone else happened to notice the survey, reported on CNN, about high schoolers and their view of the first amendment. </p>
<p>seems a third think the first amendment goes too far and about half think the government should have some control over what the press reports.</p>
<p>to me, this is even more chilling than Churchill's remarks.</p>
<p>Mini: Agree with you about Gonzales et al.
NYCdad: It is chilling, indeed. Unfortunately, people like Churchill, Falwell or Linbaugh don't help. Nor do people who issued death threats to Hamilton officials and led to Churchll being disinvited. I, for one,would have liked to have someone challenge him.</p>
<p>nyc dad, I was also thinking about the survey about free speech. I don't think the blame is primarily talk shows. I think it is the tone set by Bush, Gonzalez and those who want to always create an atmosphere of mortal threat and fear wrt to terrorism for their own political means.</p>
<p>This issue has been surfacing since I was in college and I am sure before that. School picks a speaker controversial in some regard, and everyone complains. Sometimes the invitation is rescinded. Many times just because the students or public don't like the viewpoints of the speaker. Sometimes he/she is too conservative, too establishment, sometimes too way out there or too liberal. It's a shame. But when you are asking someone to come and speak, in fact you are PAYING them to come and speak, you want them to be able to make a speech without resorting to namecalling and inflammatory remarks that serve no purpose but to hurt a group of people. I guess I am touchy about that because it is something I've been doing for most of my life now; trying to teach kids to get their viewpoint across without being insulting. My boys, in particular. My oldest son, in particular. Too often he found himself in trouble not for his views but for the utter disregard for his audience to a point where he was rude. Yes, "that one may smile, and smile, and be villain" is ever so true, but there are certain forms for discussion, protest and speech that should be regarded. Also, considering that many NYC kids do go to Hamilton, the disregard for those who suffered on 9/11 is there as well. Now, I notice that Churchill's area of expertise is with Indian affairs, and he may well have a strong record in advocating in this area, and that was why he was invited. But it seems to me to invite some one who is flangrent name calling in a hurtful subject was not a good idea.</p>
<p>I agree that it is not a good call to choose to invite someone to speak who resorts to name calling, particularly someone whose life work is in ethnic studies of all things. But like Marite, I also abhor that threats of violence are what led to the cancellation. That also is repugnant. I also almost wish he had spoken and was challenged. I would never have invited him of course but I think the backlash to his use of name calling and bigotry would have been a good thing. </p>
<p>It is too bad, all of it, because the guy had some other valid points of view, but his message was diluted once he resorted to the wording of his delivery.</p>
<p>Nice work. Rancid opportunist.</p>
<p>If Rush Limbaugh can stay on the radio this guy should be able to speak at Hamilton College.</p>
<p>Ward Churchill is a fool and Hamilton College is something worse for inviting him in the first place and then canceling with the most disingenuous excuse I have ever heard. However he should not be fired from his teaching position. There is an issue of academic freedom. He may have been a poor choice by UC Boulder from the getgo but once they hired him and put him on the tenure track they cannot then silence him just because his conclusions, however intemperate or distasteful offend the public.</p>
<p>Patuxent: I agree. UC Boulder seems to make a lot of poor decisions.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Interim Chancellor Phil DiStefano ordered a 30-day review of Ward Churchill's speeches and writings to determine if the professor overstepped his boundaries of academic freedom and whether that should be grounds for dismissal.
[/quote]
The Colorado Board of Regents supports the Chancellor's actions, and appologized for Churchill's comments.</p>
<p>Agree? Disagree? Don't care?</p>
<p>The article l<strong>j posted is fascinating (thanks l</strong>j). It states that the Indian nations cannot verify the claim made by Churchill that he is a native american, and that as best they can tell, he was grandfathered in as a thanks for something he did, by a former leader who has since been impeached. From the article:</p>
<p>"Churchill's Indian status is not verifiable in the usual ways of checking into tribal membership. We are expansive here from a national position on recognized and non-recognized tribes, southern nations and global indigenous people, but the question of relations and proper belonging in the tribal circles in the United States and Canada is generally verifiable for Indian observers and such appears to be completely lacking in Churchill's case. He has claimed membership in the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee, but reliable representatives from the tribe deny Churchill is or ever was, or has blood relatives on their rolls. He was granted an ''associate certificate'' by a former leader of the tribe (later impeached) for services supposedly rendered, not due to blood relations - but even the tribe declines to exactly identify what that means." </p>
<p>Lying about who you are, especially if it is paramount to your career, is deplorable. If I remember this correctly, there was a sports coach at GA Tech who said, in his resume, that he had completed a masters, when he had apparently not finished it. His dishonesty about his credentials, even though it may have had a huge impact on his coaching skills, cost him his job at Tech and the postion he was being considered for. If you lie about who you are, you should be held accountable. This may not be a perfect analogy, but I do believe Churchill needs to be accountable for what he says. If Colorado made an error in judgement, or made a decision based on false information, I believe they have a right to reconsider it.</p>
<p>Reidm, I am the OP. If you read the article posted above, "Churchill's identity revealed in wake of Nazi comment" (by Indian Country, "the nation's leading Indian news source") you might feel differently. This thread has said repeatedly that this is not about free speech. The article says:</p>
<p>"The case of a professor or any other American exercising the right of free speech is always important to us. We support that fundamental right more than any other and believe that even the extreme views of others (which sometimes become mainstream) must be defended against any force that would silence our First Amendment rights as citizens and as free human beings.The nature of Churchill's decidedly offensive remarks, however, forces us to critique in general the injurious approach to scholarship and basic human decency. We defend the right to broadcast and publish, but propose it is reprehensible to excoriate innocent human beings who have suffered great loss by rubbing salt in deep wounds simply to prove a political point and simply to strike (one more time) a political posture on behalf of the far left and under the guise of American Indian sentiment."</p>
<p>"We will defend a good Indian argument in these pages any time. But, again, there is no evidence that Churchill is Indian. Further, Churchill's statements are obviously devoid of even the most basic humanity that American Indian peoples hold dear. In no way does his insult reflect the views of Indian country. "</p>
<p>As Barrons said, this man is a "rancid opportunist" who is now lying and playing this up for all he can get - claiming he has been silenced by those who deny free speech. I wouldn't be surprised if he made up most of the "death threats" himself. Doubt has been cast on who exactly painted those Nazi swastikas on his property - most think it was he himself. </p>
<p>I think he is a pathological nutcase - NOT because he believes America foreign policy decisions played a role in 9/11, which reasonable people can argue, but for his sickening behaviors. The fact that Colorado had Yale PhDs on staff and they put this poseur with his so-called "MA in Communications" from some defunct "college" as head of Ethnic Studies just shows what a con artist he was, and how he was able to pull the wool over so many people's eyes.</p>
<p>Churchill's being featured on Bill O'Reilly on Fox news tonight......not interviewed ( I don't think) but discussed...maybe someone from Hamilton will be on.....</p>
<p>
[quote]
I wouldn't be surprised if he made up most of the "death threats" himself. Doubt has been cast on who exactly painted those Nazi swastikas on his property - most think it was he himself.
[/quote]
Actually when I heard about the swastikas I thought the same thing myself. This sounds just like the Claremont incident last year, which made the national news after a speaker at a rally against hate speech supposedly came back to her car to find it vandalized. It turned out she did it all herself, and she was in fact convicted of filing a false police report and insurance fraud ( <a href="http://www.dailybulletin.com/Stories/0,1413,203%257E21481%257E2343788,00.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.dailybulletin.com/Stories/0,1413,203%257E21481%257E2343788,00.html</a> ) I wouldn't be surprised if this guy or his friends did it to get sympathy.</p>
<p>Yeah the president of Claremont College and the President of UC Boulder are two both are brainless twits whose primary qualifications for their jobs appears to be that they have ovaries. Of course they are probably both in line to replace Summers at Harvard who is a brainless twit in his own right. Who hires these people anyway? The PC crowd and the hustlers who use them or abuse them are an endless source of amusement.</p>
<p>Churchill flim-flamed his way into the job based on his asserted 1/16 Native American heritage. I guess it is the one drop rule. What comes after octoroon? And do we have a government office somewhere that can assign the official racial and ethnic classification? What happened to the guys in apartheid South Africa who were in charge of that? Maybe we could import a few of them. Heck the one drop rule could really improve a schools diversity numbers since we probably all have an Indian in the wood pile somewhere in the family tree.</p>
<p>I believe the current president of UC Boulder came from Chicago in 2000 well after Churchill was tenured.
I don't understand the reference to Claremont.</p>
<p>In a few minutes, Mr.Churchill is going to be interviewed live, from Denver, on CNN.
It's now 8:09 p.m. EST</p>
<p>Yes Hoffman may have come from Chicago in 2000 but it was under her watch that women were being raped at football recruiting parties and she was the one who put her foot in her mouth more than once compounding a sorry situation.</p>